1. Field of Invention
The Pulsed Plasma Generator (PPG) is a high-voltage generator producing electrons, or positive ions, through a multi-stage, non-equilibrium, non-thermal, non-magnetic pulsed plasma method using externally provided energy. Energy pulse events occur through a multi-stage energy concentration sequence within the apparatus. This sequence includes methods to concentrate electrostatic/electric energy that is subsequently released from a uniquely designed electron emissive device. The timed release of the concentrated electron energy from the electron emissive device is in the form of a plurality of non-nuclear energetic electrons. These electrons drive subsequent events creating bremsstrahlung photons interacting within molecules residing within a compressed gas. Results of these interactions emit free electrons at high energy levels from the lower valence levels of the compressed gas molecules. These high energy free electrons are used as a source of current and/or potential energy for use by external loads. The emitted free electrons of the PPG exceed one megavolt, at energy levels exceeding one Joule.
2. Prior Art
Prior art limitations using pulsed plasma techniques to emit electrons at significant Joule energy level potentials, involve reliance on inefficient plasma generation techniques. These limitations include the inability to generate high energy electrons possessing fast rise time voltage pulses characteristics or methods in creating effective quantities of bremsstrahlung photons. The primary components of the low efficiency electron generation methods described in the prior art include capacitor construction limitations, as well as inherent thermal and inductive losses.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,363,774 Bennett describes an apparatus that projects ions having atomic number masses greater than 40 at high velocities into high density nuclei residing within a target. Using ions at these levels of mass will significantly decrease the effectiveness of the bremsstrahlung photon generation method further described in this application.
The description of the Bennett apparatus includes the creation of high current electron pulses possessing velocity and energy levels at frequencies characteristic of X-ray/alpha particle ranges and above. The PPG apparatus cannot efficiently perform as an electron emissive device in this range of frequencies. The optimal performance range of the PPG high voltage, low current pulses occurs in a lower range of frequencies associated with cathode rays.
Finally, the Bennett apparatus relies on a beam concentrating technique that the high current electron pulses must flow through. In contrast the PPG apparatus relies on a beam forming technique that relies on the diameter of the beam being equal to the diameter of the target used to generate the bremsstrahlung photons. The diameter of the energy beam created within the PPG apparatus is several orders of magnitude greater than the diameter of the energetic beam described by Bennett.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,849,854 describes prior art with means for producing ions by first bombarding a fluent material with electrons from an anode. This apparatus then applies a magnetic field concentrating the flow of electrons to the center of the anode. The inductive characteristics of this apparatus in using magnetic fields to penetrate into the contained gas, significantly lowers the rise time of the leading edge of the magnetic generated pulse of energy in creating ionized plasma. The lower rise time the leading edge of this magnetic pulse of energy, directly corresponds to fewer electrons/positive ions per unit of time being created from the outer valence bands of the gaseous molecules residing within the plasma. The rise time of the magnetic pulse of energy continues to decrease the further that this magnetic generated pulse of energy penetrates into the contained gas. This limitation decreases the overall efficiency of the plasma generation when this type of method is used, as measured in the amount of electrons/ions being generated, compared to the total number of gaseous molecules available for creating plasma. The fastest magnetic generated energy pulse rise times achieved using inductively oriented magnetic field methods are tens of microseconds or greater, as compared to the several hundred nanosecond voltage rise time occurring within the PPG apparatus.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,339,691, Morimiya, et al., describe a discharge apparatus containing an evacuated vacuum envelope. In the envelope, an anode and a hollow cathode are disposed and connected to an arc power supply generating periodic spark discharges between two oppositely charged electrodes. This approach provides a smaller quantity of ions per unit of time as compared to a continuous flow of electrostatic/electric field energy via a brush or corona discharge. The Morimiya, et al. apparatus also relies on a continuous flow of gas into the evacuated chamber, rather than a containment of the gas in a non-gas replacement configuration occurring during each spark discharge event.
Further, U.S. Pat. No. 4,339,691 Uses a magnetic component to prohibit lateral expansion of ions as they are focused towards an aperture in which the electron beam exits the apparatus. No embodiment was disclosed where anything other than a magnetic field approach could be used to focus the electron beam.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,749,910—This patent describes an electron beam-excited ion beam source where a discharge occurs between a flat plate electrode and a cathode. These plates are connected across both sides of a power source, rather than using only a single pole source of energy. In addition, a beam of elevated energy is described that is forced through an aperture in a plate. This approach is the only method described in transporting the elevated energy outside of the apparatus. This patent is silent on using an approach of projecting the beam of elevated energy onto a plate with no apertures.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,624,584—This patent describes a source for producing excited particles where two volumes are connected to each other through an aperture provided at the partition between the two volumes. The gas in the first volume is maintained at a higher pressure. As the gas in the first volume is excited to a higher energy state, it flows through the aperture in the partition into the second volume maintained at a lower pressure. This patent does not describe any embodiment that does not include an aperture. In addition, this patent does not describe any embodiment where a low-pressure gas is maintained in a first volume, and a higher pressure gas concurrently maintained in a second volume.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,841,197—This patent describes an ion source, including an electric discharge chamber body divided by a partition, containing an anode electrode. The second discharge chamber has a tungsten filament mounted therein aligned with at least one small aperture. This aperture is positioned in the partition wall separating the first chamber and the second chamber. In addition a magnetic field is established along an axis of the at least one small opening in the anode electrode. This patent does not describe any embodiment that does not contain apertures or does not use magnetic fields.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,805,779—This patent describes an energy source exciting energized atoms provided in a feed gas, surrounded by a magnetic field. This method excites the atoms into an ionized state, thereby generating plasma with multi-step sequences of ionization. This patent does not describe any embodiment that does not use a flow of gas or the use of anything other than magnetic fields to excite energized atoms.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,085,229 (patent application Dec. 12, 2002)—The basic principle of inductively coupled plasma (ICP), as described by the patents in this class, requires the use of a frequency based power source sending energy through conductive wires or rods surrounding a container of gas maintained at low pressure. The supplied energy inductively couples into the gas thereby creating plasma. The creation of plasma is through vibrational frequency excitation methods separating electrons from the outer valence levels of their respective gas molecules leaving positive ions. The use of ICP patents relying on high frequency energy frequency input pulses create conditions where the oscillation between the negative and positive energy values significantly limit the amount of free electrons generated.
The inductively coupled approach further contributes to the limitations of efficiently generating free electrons. This occurs through the application of the induced energy flowing from outside the volume of gas towards the center of this gas being maintained in a low pressure. This approach creates an inductive “skin effect” limitation. This limitation occurs as the induced energy penetrates each layer of the gas maintained under low pressure. Heat is created by the collisions of the molecules of the gas as the induced energy penetrates deeper into the gas. As the temperature of the gas increases based on these collisions, the heat is transferred into the deeper internal layers of the gas creating additional collisions per unit area. This inefficient method continues to expand with each deeper layer of the gas that the induced energy penetrates. This “skin effect” limitation results in extremely low energy efficiencies with respect to the number of free electrons generated, versus the amount of induced energy injected into the gas. A large portion of the ICP energy generated to create plasma is lost in the form of waste heat as a byproduct of the “skin effect” condition.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,581,156—The end goal of this patent is to produce a negative ion source. As portion of the method performed to reach this end product creates and confines plasma to produce free electrons from the outer valence levels of the targeted gaseous molecules, as well as excited neutral molecules, and excited ions. The confinement is obtained by various magnetic field configurations produced by permanent magnets. While this patent uses two chambers to create the end product of negative ions, both chambers contain apertures. This patent does not describe any embodiment that does not allow a flow of gas through apertures or the use of magnetic fields.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,758,199—This patent describes a piezoelectric subcomponent used as an impedance matching method. This subcomponent is located within the transformer and generates a periodic spark discharge between a cathode and an anode contained within a closed circuit. This patent does not describe any embodiment using a brush or corona discharge in a continuous charging mode, rather than a periodic point in time spark discharge. In addition, this patent does not describe methods using an open circuit with a cathode projecting electrons into plasma.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,880,581—This patent describes a circuit using a unipolar capacitor. This patent is representative of the previous art in capacitor design. This design assumes current flowing through two conductive wires attached to two plates of the capacitor in a closed loop circuit configuration. One lead is maintained at a higher potential than the conductive lead connected to a second plate of the capacitor. The term “bipolar” capacitor is used hereinafter to describe this type of two-plate capacitor configuration.
The bipolar capacitor approach relies on current flowing through two plates of the capacitor to store energy within the dielectric of the bipolar capacitor. However, this approach also contributes to limiting the initial rise time of the leading edge of the voltage pulse when energy is released from a bipolar capacitor. This limitation is that a residual charge remains on each of the plates of the bipolar capacitor once the current ceases flowing. This limitation in turn reduces the electrical relaxation time function of the bipolar capacitor dielectric material. This limitation also limits the rise time of the leading edge of the subsequently released energy of the bipolar capacitor in the form of a voltage pulse to microseconds or greater.
In addition to the above limitations, U.S. Pat. No. 5,880,581 does not describe any embodiments allowing a brush or corona discharge of energy into the bipolar capacitor. Nor does this patent describe any embodiments where a one-plate capacitor configuration is used.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,288,641—This patent describes a high capacitive energy storage device in a double layer interface. This approach stores high levels of DC voltage provided energy to be released in a subsequent capacitive discharge event. However the high energy fast rise time leading edge pulses flowing from a high voltage capacitor are limited by the internal inductance of the dipole moment relaxation of the capacitor's dielectric material. The design characteristics of the dielectric material and physical configuration of the capacitor have attributes including high levels of dielectric absorption, coupled with a low dissipation factor. These attributes directly correlate to lower dipole moment relaxation times and the inductive circuit limitations inherent to bipolar capacitor configurations. In addition, inductance limits the rise time of the high voltage pulse as the voltage flows through the conductive wire path connecting the high voltage DC pulse to the contained gaseous target to be ionized into an ionized plasma state.
While the combination of capacitor elements described above contribute to storing high levels of energy, the above elements also combine in limiting the rise time of the leading edge of the voltage discharge pulse occurring within the gaseous target. This limits the leading edge of the voltage discharge pulse rise time to be in the microsecond to millisecond range. This leading edge of the voltage discharge pulse rise time limitation significantly limits the efficiency of the overall method in generating electrons and positive ions in the plasma residing within the gaseous target.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,424,904—This patent describes a method for generating negative hydrogen ions from a proton source. This method includes passing a beam of protons having relatively low energies in the range of up to about 2000 electron volts through atoms of a metal selected from the group consisting of cesium, rubidium, potassium, and sodium in order to produce a beam of particles comprising metastable and ground state hydrogen atoms and charged particles. The energy efficiencies of this method are severely limited by the upper electron volt limitation of the beam of protons. In addition, this energy limitation of the beam of protons significantly limits the thickness of the metal and thereby the quantity of ions generated per unit of time. This patent further discloses the use of magnetic fields. This patent does not describe any embodiment that does not use a magnetic field.
3. Discussion of Prior Art
In reviewing the prior art with respect to generating high energy free electrons from a pulsed plasma-based approach, no solution has been found within the prior art that can generate the volume of high energy free electrons desired per unit of time as described in this specification. In addition, significant constraints are imposed on the energy efficiencies of generating plasma using methods described in the prior art.
A review of the prior art reveals methods focusing on generating plasma using ionization by collision and/or thermal ionization techniques driving out electrons from the higher valence bands of gaseous molecules, rather than using bremsstrahlung photon energy to drive out electrons from the lower valence bands of gaseous molecules. The prior art methods lower overall electron and positive ion creation efficiencies by creating waste heat as a by-product of the methodologies previously applied in generating plasma. In addition, these approaches create plasma environments where large percentages of electrons and positive ions are loosely attracted to each other within the plasma, rather than being free to move into an external environment. In many of these situations the overall net charge of the plasma is neutral when viewed from the surrounding environment, rather than possessing nonequilibrium plasma characteristics.
In general the prior art describing the generation of plasma containing energetic electrons and positive ions is silent on the inefficiencies of the respective methods of plasma generation. These inefficiencies in turn directly correlate to low production rates per unit of time of free electrons or positive ions. One measure of an inefficient method is the volume of free electrons generated per unit of time in Joules divided by the amount of energy in Joules input into the initial plasma generating and plasma containment methodology. Another measure of an inefficient plasma generation method is the amount of heat generated in Joules divided by the amount of energy in Joules input into the initial plasma generating and plasma containment method.
In reviewing the prior art there are five elements, where one or more of these elements are combined into plasma creation apparatus designs resulting in low efficiency levels of free electron generation. Because of the inefficiencies induced by one or more of these methods, the creation of plasma is limited primarily to the vibrational or thermal excitation of electrons located within gaseous molecules surrounding the perimeter of the contained gas. The five elements discussed below limiting the generation of free electrons through the use of pulsed plasma techniques are the use of varying magnetic fields, alternating current (AC) or radio frequency (RF) input energy, apertures allowing the flow of gaseous molecules or plasma, spark discharges, and bipolar capacitor driven designs.
Inducing the creation of plasma within a volume of gas through the use of a varying pulse of energy imposed from the outer volume towards the center of the gas creates a “skin effect” resistance on the outer layers of the gas. This “skin effect” resistance is created by kinetic collisions between the induced magnetic pulse energy and the molecules, as well as kinetic collisions between the gaseous molecules. A significant portion of these kinetic collisions release energy in the form of heat. As the number of kinetic collisions of the gaseous molecules increases per unit of time, additional heat is created which continues to generate additional heat.
The number of gaseous molecule collisions per unit of time directly correlates to slowing down the front edge of a magnetic pulse as it continues to move towards the center of the volume of gas. This combined “skin effect” method, provides and additional contribution to decreasing the rise times of the leading edge of the magnetic pulse as it penetrates into the volume of gas. This decrease in the rise time of the leading edge of the magnetic pulse continues to lower the overall plasma generation efficiencies as the magnetic field penetrates further into the volume of gas. In parallel, the amount of waste heat being generated per unit area increases in direct proportion to the energy contained in the magnetic pulse as it penetrates further into the volume of gas.
In order to increase efficiencies in creating free electrons, a non-kinetic interaction with gaseous molecules is desired. One of the benefits of this approach is that it increases efficiencies in creating free electrons by not encountering inefficient heat generation methods. One of the early publications describing a method of applying photon energy in obtaining free slow-speed high energy electrons using primary, secondary and/or tertiary rays to strike gas molecules is described by in Phillip Von Lenard's Nobel acceptance speech on the discovery of Cathode Rays in 1906. Another publication by W. H. Bragg in 1907 describes similar results from using photon energy to create electrons. In the PPG apparatus, photons are used to drive a portion of these electrons out of the lower levels of gaseous molecular valence states in the form of slow speed electrons. This approach requires that the energetic photons created by the PPG apparatus having energy values greater than the ionization energies of the electrons residing in their respective valence shells of the gaseous molecules. However, there is an upper limitation to the photon energy. If the photon energy is too high, the photon will not remain near a gaseous molecule target long enough to force an electron out of the lower valence level of the gaseous molecule target.
When these valence shell electrons are driven out of a gas such as helium, a free electron and a positive ion are created without resorting to the use of kinetic collisions as the primary mechanism. This advantage in turn minimizes the amount of induced energy being lost in the form of heat being generated, thereby allowing a much higher percentage of the induced energy to be direct towards creating more free electrons and positive ions.
In comparison to the methods used by the PPG apparatus, the prior art describes the use of thermal or kinetic approaches that inherently limit electrons to being driven out of the highest valence states of gaseous molecules, rather than the lower valence states as done by the PPG method.
When the initial voltage pulse excitation uses AC or RF energy forced into a volume of gas to create plasma, the potential quantity of free electrons from the outer valence shell of molecules being generated at any point in time is limited by the pulse width of the oscillation input energy. Any generated free electrons, or free positive ions, must be drawn out of the plasma before the subsequent opposing charge portion of the AC or RF energy pulse enters into the plasma that restrains movement of the free electrons, or free positive ions. If only one polarity of the AC or RF pulse is used, then half of the energy used to create the initial waveform is wasted, thereby increasing the overall energy inefficiency of this type of method. When both polarities are used, the negative impact of the overall energy inefficiencies due to polarity reversals is increased. In addition, this approach negatively impacts the creation of nonequilibrium plasma.
Within the previous art, the use of apertures is described as a portion of the method to generate plasma. This method allows gaseous molecules to travel between chambers, or from within a chamber to an external environment. This method constrains the generation of plasma and the extraction of free electrons using the methods occurring within the PPG apparatus. One of the goals of the PPG apparatus design is for a bremsstrahlung photon to travel past as many gaseous molecules as possible. This goal requires that the gaseous molecules be constrained as much as possible. Sir Ernest Rutherford describes photographic experiments performed by C. T. R. Wilson depicting free electrons being generated by beta rays. Wilson indicated that the path of one beta ray would generate approximately 90 electrons from gaseous molecules before its energy level became too low to be effective. A. H. Compton and Sir J. J. Thompson reference a number of investigators that reported ranges electrons from 10 to several hundred being generated from gaseous molecules by an energetic photon. The highest numbers reported occurred with the use of cathode rays.
A subset of the prior art describes the use of spark discharges as a form of ejecting energy into a volume of gas to create plasma. This is another form of a low efficiency approach where only a small portion of the energy used in creating the spark is translated into plasma. The majority of the energy used in creating the spark flows between the electrodes and not into the volume of gas where the plasma is being created. The portion of the spark energy flowing into the volume of gas creates plasma primarily through inducing kinetic collisions of the gaseous molecules. As previously stated, this method in itself creates inefficiencies where a portion of this energy is transformed into heat rather than free electrons and free positive ions residing within plasma.
With respect to capacitors being employed in the previous art generating a pulse of energy into a volume of gas to create plasma, inductive limitations of traditional two plate bipolar capacitor designs limit the rise time of the leading edge of the voltage pulse. Prior art two plate bipolar capacitors function on current flowing through two conductive wires attached to two plates of the capacitor, where one lead is maintained at a higher potential than the conductive lead attached to a second plate of the capacitor. This approach builds a subsequent inductive constraint limiting the rise time of the leading edge of the voltage pulse when energy is released from a bipolar capacitor. This constraint is that a residual charge remains on each of the plates of the bipolar capacitor. This residual charge temporarily establishes a separate, yet interrelated opposing electric field spanning across the dielectric material located between the two plates of the bipolar capacitor. This electric field in turn induces its own slower electrical relaxation time function, which in turn couples into the electrical relaxation time of the dielectric material located between the two plates of the bipolar capacitor. The combined electrical relaxation times in turn limit the rise time of the leading edge of the released energy from the bipolar capacitor in the form of a voltage pulse to microseconds or greater.
The above limitation also occurs in earlier generation capacitors such as a Leyden jar design. When the single internal one pole (or plate) is charged, the other plate located on the outside of the Leyden jar is grounded. Current does not flow in this configuration when electrostatic energy is used to charge the Leyden jar capacitor. However, as the charge flows into the Leyden jar, an electrostatic field is established between the internal plate and the external grounded plate attracting an opposite charge to the grounded plate through the ground wire. The electrical relaxation time of the dielectric material contained between the two plates is constrained by the slower electrical relaxation time of the previously established electric field existing between the two opposing charge plates of the Leyden jar as discussed above.
4. Objects and Advantages
At a high level, the advantages of the PPG apparatus fall into four primary groups, each group building upon the quantity of high energy electrons created within previous stages of the PPG apparatus. The cumulative contribution of each advantage allows a pulsed flow of high energy free electrons flowing to the outer Faraday shield of the PPG providing a source of high voltage free electrons for use as a source of current and/or potential energy.
The first primary group of advantages of the PPG is the shape, material, mounting and location of the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor. An additional advantage includes the combination of the positive ions and electrons residing within the concentric nonequilibrium plasma cylinders residing within the first chamber of the PPG apparatus. The second primary group of advantages is the ability of the PPG to ionize a contained volume of gaseous atoms maintained in elevated metastable states within both chambers between each pulse. The third primary group of advantages is the cooler temperatures occurring through using bremsstrahlung radiation methods as the primary means of flooding energetic photons into a pressurized gas residing in the second chamber. This non-thermal approach focuses on driving slow speed high energy electrons out of the lower valence levels of the pressurized gas. This approaches overcome lower efficiency methods described in the prior art incorporating high temperatures and/or molecular vibrational techniques to drive electrons out of the upper valence levels of the gas molecules.
The fourth advantage is the PPG apparatus configuration allows the free slow-speed high energy electrons to be captured and moves to the outer shell of the PPG surrounding the first and second chambers through an electron transfer method described by the Faraday Effect.
The combination of the objects and advantages of my invention significantly increases the overall efficiency of generating pulsed plasma resulting in the creation of large quantities of free slow-speed high energy electrons, as compared to the low efficiency methodologies described in prior art plasma generation methods. A key advantage of my invention is that it overcomes significant inductive limiting effects hindering the generation of fast rise time high energy leading edge voltage pulses as compared to the prior art. Nikola Tesla described the correlation between fast rise time high energy leading edge voltage pulses and the creation of energetic bremsstrahlung photons. However his methods of generating these types of voltage pulses were limited by inductive constraints of the types of power transformers that he used to create voltage pulses for his bremsstrahlung photon experiments.
My invention overcomes these inductive limiting techniques by not using magnetic fields created and maintained by flowing currents of closed loop electricity in initial, or subsequent method steps as described in the prior art when generating plasma within the PPG apparatus. In addition, my invention's reduction of inductive limitations in creating plasma directly correlates with higher efficiencies in creating plasma within the PPG apparatus, as compared to the low plasma generation efficiencies described in the prior art.
The innovative design and mounting mechanism of the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor subcomponent located within the PPG apparatus significantly overcomes limitations of traditional bipolar capacitors in providing fast rise time, high energy voltage pulses. This advantage arises through an innovation in my invention using a high voltage/low current brush or corona discharge approach placing significant electrostatic/electric field strains on the dipole moments contained within the dielectric material. The electrostatic/electric field strains applied to the tip of the dielectric material flows towards the lower energy well maintained in the larger mass area of the dielectric material. Each dipole moment within the dielectric material of the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor accepts energy as a non-inductive form of retained energy. The level of retained energy represents the collective sum of all increased dipole strains residing within the dielectric mass. The rate of increase of the voltage potential of this retained energy over time slows until the voltage level of the retained energy rises to equal the voltage level being presented at the sharp point of the piezoelectric capacitor. A description of the non-inductive piezoelectric response of dielectric material within the presence of different levels of electrostatic/electric fields was described by Valasek and reported by Cady.
An interrelated key characteristic contributing to the fast rise time of the leading edge of the high voltage pulse occurring within the PPG apparatus is that the selected dielectric material of the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor possesses low levels of dielectric absorption and high levels of dissipation characteristics. High energy bi-polar storage capacitors described in the prior art tend to have very high energy density characteristics restraining a significant percentage of energy from quickly discharging in the discharge mode. The restrained energy characteristic of traditional bi-polar capacitors contributes to the slower electrical relaxation times exhibited by these types of capacitors. This slower electrical relaxation time of bi-polar capacitors excludes them from designs requiring high voltage leading edge pulse rise times of less than several hundred nanoseconds.
The unique wedge shape of my unipolar piezoelectric capacitor design also contributes to overcoming the dipole polarization design limitations of high voltage bipolar capacitors described in the prior art. Increasing the voltage potential within and surrounding my unipolar piezoelectric capacitor further enhances the strain magnification effect discussed above, thereby providing an additional contribution to the overall fast rise time characteristics of the subsequent leading edge of the high voltage pulse of electrons when they are released from the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor.
The design and method of using a holster to mount the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor within the PPG serves two purposes. The first purpose of the holster is to ensure that the tip of the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor remains stationary and pointed directly towards an interface plate mounted between the first and second chambers of the PPG. The second purpose of the holster is to provide an energized surface area that places an additional electrostatic/electric field strain on the polarized dipoles residing within the dielectric material of the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor. This electrostatic/electric field strain is provides an additional force component in speeding up the dipole moment electrical relaxation time within the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor when the charging voltage is withdrawn. This function in turn contributes to the desired effect of having a fast rise time of the leading edge of the high voltage pulse exiting the cathode of the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor towards the interface plate. The rise time leading edge of this voltage pulse is at least an order of magnitude greater that high voltage rise times observed when energy is released in traditional bipolar capacitors.
An additional related key characteristic of my unipolar piezoelectric capacitor is that the dielectric breakdown strength of the dielectric material is not a key concern with respect to the amount of energy stored in comparison to bipolar capacitors. The energy storage in the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor is primarily related to the dipole polarization characteristics, whereas the design of the bipolar capacitor is heavily dependent upon the dielectric breakdown strength as a key component in determining the limits of energy storage capacity.
The energy storage capacity of bipolar capacitors described in the prior art with respect to high levels of energy storage is also limited by the internal breakdown characteristics occurring between the positive and negative plates of the bipolar capacitor. This dielectric breakdown strength function in turn becomes one of the restraining factors on the electrical relaxation time of the bipolar capacitor, which directly contributes to the slower leading edge high voltage pulse rise times outputs observed in the prior art for high voltage bipolar capacitors.
Coupling the fast rise time high voltage energy pulse provided by the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor, strategically placed within the first chamber, significantly increases the efficiencies in the overall plasma generation methodology when compared to the prior art. The skin effect observed when a slow rise time voltage pulse begins to penetrate a gas is significantly reduced within the PPG apparatus. This occurs when the positive ions created within the first chamber plasma generation method are attracted to the negatively charged circular wall of the first chamber forming an outer cylinder of nonequilibrium positive plasma. This method allows the free electrons created within the first chamber plasma generation methodology to form along an inner cylindrical axis of the first chamber. This “outer cylinder” of nonequilibrium positive ion plasma attracts the electrons in the negative portion of the “inner cylinder”. This “inner cylinder” in turn has a higher concentration of free electrons located towards the outer diameter of this “inner cylinder” and a lower concentration of electrons in the central axis area located between the tip of the unipolar capacitor and the interface plate located between the two chambers residing within the PPG. This configuration in turn allows a higher percentage of high energy fast moving pulsed electrons from the tip of the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor to move through the central axis of the “inner cylinder” towards the interface plate encountering a low percentage of collisions with gaseous molecules residing within the first chamber of the PPG.
An additional key object and advantage incorporated into my invention is the structure of the first chamber and interface plate contributes to transforming the energy of the energetic electrons into bremsstrahlung photons being projected into the second chamber of the PPG. The result of this advantage allows the creation of large quantities of slow-speed high energy free electrons flowing onto the outer Faraday shield of the apparatus. The advantage of this portion of my invention's methodology is that significantly higher levels of Joule energy in the form of slow-speed high energy free electrons are accumulated based on greater plasma generation efficiencies occurring within the PPG when compared to the methods described in the prior art.
When the capabilities discussed above are combined together within the sequence of steps performed within my invention, much cooler plasma temperatures occur within the metastable environments established in both chambers of my invention. These cooler plasma temperatures also contribute to my invention having much lower inductance resulting in a more efficient generation of plasma. This plasma in turn directly supports the generation of large quantities of free electron as compared to thermally oriented molecular vibration methods described in the prior art.
In comparison to prior art techniques, the advantages discussed above with respect to maintaining a vacuum in the first chamber and a pressure in the second chamber containing different types of gases, or gas mixtures, within their respective metastable environments could not be achieved if apertures were included in the PPG design. Apertures between the two chambers or to the outside of the PPG would not allow the different plasma effects discussed above to occur that are based on the different pressure/gas characteristics of each chamber.
An additional object of my invention is that multiple PPG units can be used in a sequential methodology where the slow-speed high energy free electrons collected on the outer Faraday shield of a first unit are used as the input to a second unit thereby increasing overall Joule energy levels of the slow-speed high energy free electrons being generated by the second unit to higher levels. This method of connecting the output of one PPG unit to the input of an additional PPG unit can be extended for as many PPG units as desired.
As discussed above, the design of the PPG apparatus focuses on releasing a pulse of fast voltage rise time energy in the form of energetic electrons from the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor to the interface plate rather than a spark discharge. The concept of using a brush, or corona, discharge to initially input energy into a unipolar piezoelectric capacitor design is unique when compared to the closed circuit current moving methods discussed in the prior art. This method of charging the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor, versus a spark discharge, provides much greater efficiencies in the amount of energy stored in the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor per unit of time versus using a spark discharge method. There is no grounding plate on the unipolar piezoelectric capacitor like there would be in a bipolar capacitor design. In a spark discharge event, the additional energy used in creating the spark discharge event is introduced into the overall creation of plasma methodology as unused heat, which in turn creates additional non-value impacts that further reduce free electron generation efficiencies.